


Heartbeat

by adiwriting



Series: Heartbeat [1]
Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mpreg, Sick Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-23 23:41:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30063336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adiwriting/pseuds/adiwriting
Summary: When Michael starts getting sick, the only hope he has to figure out what's wrong with him is to get Isobel to help him steal an ultrasound machine and try to research on his own...
Relationships: Michael Guerin/Alex Manes
Series: Heartbeat [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2178315
Comments: 45
Kudos: 103





	Heartbeat

**Author's Note:**

> Why yes... I did just write an entire fic at work instead of doing my actual job... I couldn't possibly find a way to focus today. It's a Monday. 
> 
> This fic goes back in time a bit to when Michael first finds out he's pregnant and is the fic in which this verse got its namesake.

It starts with some cramping in his stomach that Michael equates to hunger pain. He’s been too stressed out and depressed to eat much in the last few weeks. His fight with Alex had felt different from their usual arguments. When Alex had walked away, it had felt more permanent. The words exchanged had been biting, but then, they usually were. Michael would take his back if he could. Every last word had only been said out of fear, most of them not even true… But he’s pretty sure that isn’t true for Alex. He’s pretty sure that Alex meant everything he said and that he never wants to see Michael again. 

So he tries his best to eat more regularly and the cramps seem to go away after a few days of eating three real meals a day. It’s new for him, making sure he eats something every meal. Expensive. His grocery bill more than doubles, but actually taking his lunch instead of working straight through gives him a chance to sit down and talk to the guys some more. It’s kind of nice, having friends? 

The fatigue comes next, but he doesn't question it. In an effort to keep himself distracted and to pay for all the groceries he’s suddenly buying, he’s picked up extra hours at the junkyard. After working ten hour days for the Fosters, he does another four hours for Sanders. His body is tired as hell, but that’s understandable since he’s working so much. 

‘A little hard work never killed anyone,’ Michael reminds himself everyday he falls into bed after pushing his body to its limit. That’s what Mr. Ryerson used to tell him when Michael was still living with the crazy fundamentalists. It’s one of the few true things they’d ever said to him. Hard work is good for him. It keeps his brain active and his body moving even on the days he’s not sure there’s a purpose. The exhaustion that comes from so many hours is welcome if he’s being honest. It allows him to go home each day and pass right out rather than spend hours awake in bed while his mind slips into chaos. 

He doesn’t worry until the nausea comes along. 

Michael’s never been sick a day in his life. None of them have. He’s only ever thrown up for two reasons: alcohol or hunger. And he’s been eating more regularly and he hasn’t drank since Alex left. He’s decided he doesn’t like how he acts when he’s drunk. Doesn’t trust the words that he says. Not after the awful things he’d said to Alex before he walked out of his life for good... 

So when he starts feeling nauseous and throwing up at odd hours of the day, even when he hasn’t been drinking, he grows concerned. But the nausea comes and goes in waves. And when it’s at its worst, the last thing he wants to do is deal with either of his siblings. And when it fades to the background, he can convince himself that it’s gone for good and isn’t worth worrying anyone over. 

It’s not until he throws up at the smell of the coffee and bagels that Isobel brings over that Michael bothers to say anything. She makes a crack about his drinking habits and irresponsibility and he just snaps at her. It takes her approximately 2.5 seconds to pick up the phone and tell Max that he’s dying. He tries to tell Max that she’s just being dramatic, but the truth is, he doesn’t know. He knows next to nothing about their biology. So against his better judgement, he lets Max use his healing powers on him. And for about a week or two, Michael feels better. 

The nausea comes back with a vengeance and is accompanied by some serious heartburn. Michael deals with it for a day or two before he can’t do it anymore and caves. He calls Max, but this time, Max’s healing powers are no good. And that’s when Michael starts to actually worry. He has no idea what is going on with him and he can’t exactly walk into a doctor’s office to find out. He’s tired and sick and beyond frustrated with his lack of knowledge about his own biology. So he does what he always does when he doesn’t understand something: he goes to the library. 

He starts off by checking out every book he can find on human biology. He reads up on all of the things he didn’t learn in AP Bio and in three weeks, he’s confident he knows enough about the human body that he could pass an MCAT. But it only does him so much good, he still doesn’t know what  _ he’s _ working with. So he convinces Isobel to help him steal an ultrasound machine from the hospital so that he can get a better look at his own body. It doesn’t take much convincing. By the time he asks, he’s been sick for over a month and Isobel is convinced that he’s dying. 

**

“What are we supposed to be looking for?” Isobel asks as Michael sits on the bed in her guest room, textbooks spread out around him as he moves the wand over where his heart should be and searches the grainy image for anything resembling a heart. 

“ _ We _ aren’t doing anything,” he says. “ _ I _ am trying to map out our anatomy so I can figure out how we are wired. You are,” he grabs her phone out of her hands and snorts. “Trolling Match.com looking for… ‘a man who wants adventure.’” 

Isobel tries to grab the phone out of his hands but he pulls it beyond her reach and starts clicking through her profile. “Since when in your life have you ever wanted adventure? And why are these the pictures you chose, they look nothing like you? How many filters did you even use?” 

“I can be adventurous,” she argues as she grabs onto his arm and manages to yank her phone back, smacking him on the back of his head before sitting back down. “And  _ everyone _ uses filters. Don’t judge me.” 

“You hate change,” Michael reminds her. “You hate anything unpredictable that changes up your precious routine. You know, if you want to find somebody actually worth your time, you should be honest about who you are.” 

“Like any of us can ever be honest about who we really are,” she snaps. 

“You know what I mean,” Michael says. “I don’t get why you always try and pretend to be somebody you’re not. You’re great. The real you, not the annoying mini-Ann Evans, stepford version of you.” 

“Excuse me if I don’t take dating advice from  _ you _ . I mean have you ever even had a real relationship or just a string of random hookups in truck stop bathrooms?” she asks him, and though it stings, he figures she has a point. It’s not like he knows anything about having a successful relationship either. She might not be right about the truck stop bathrooms, but she’s not wrong about his lack of real dating history. After all, it’s been nearly 6 years of this thing with Alex and he’s still not sure they’d ever even been boyfriends. 

He turns his attention back to the grainy image on the screen and narrows his eyes, moving closer for inspection. He knows that he’s new at this, but he feels like he’s seen enough pictures in books that he’d recognize a heart if he saw it and there’s nothing there. 

It makes no sense. He has to have some kind of heart because he bleeds. Blood pumps through his body  _ somehow _ . If not a heart, then what? 

He moves the wand around his chest until he finally sees his heart. On the right side of his chest. 

“Huh,” he says, leaning in closer for a better look. He wonders if this means everything in their body is exactly the opposite from humans, which would be a weird evolutionary quirk. It’s already hard enough to believe his species had developed on a whole other planet and somehow ended up looking nearly identical to humans. 

“I thought these were just for pregnant women,” Isobel says, pulling the cart away from him so she can take a look at the screen herself. He glares at her as he pulls the cart back over. She has no idea what she’s looking for and he’s annoyed that she’s suddenly interested just as he’s finally finding something useful. 

“Ultrasounds create images of soft tissue structures, so they’re used for a number of things,” he explains. When Isobel gives him a blank look, he rolls his eyes. “Did you pay any attention in biology class?” 

“Nope,” she says without an ounce of shame. It annoys Michael because she’d been lucky enough to take two years of classes through Roswell Community College and she’d put approximately zero effort into any of them. She was always telling him, ‘C’s get degrees, Michael’ as if she had no appreciation for the opportunities gifted to her. 

But that’s not an argument he wants to get into today. 

“They are used for looking at organs, not just babies,” he tells her. “And they can also measure blood flow into the arteries, detect some cancers and cysts, and all kinds of other things. So with any luck, this will show me what’s wrong with me.” 

“Or it’ll just show you that you’re pregnant,” she jokes, but Michael isn’t fooled by her carefree tone. He’d seen the way she flinched when she said the word cancer. Isobel is worried. He wants to calm her fears but the truth is, he’s worried too. So he does what he does best, covers up his fear with a whole lot of snark. 

“Yeah, sure. That’s it. I’m pregnant,” he says. “Now can you shut up so I can concentrate?” 

Isobel sits back in her fancy armchair that probably costs more than his entire Airstream and looks down at her phone, though he can still see her sending worried looks in his direction. He blocks her out and turns back to the ultrasound machine, determined to figure this out. 

He spends the next hour sitting there with his notebook sketching out what his heart looks like, trying to figure out if he can tell how the blood flows in and out and if it works the same as a human heart. But the harsh reality is that he isn’t a doctor and he can only figure out so much on his own with the knowledge he has. He’ll need to do more research before he can make sense of everything he’s seeing. He’s already read all of the medical books the Roswell Public Library has to offer, but perhaps he can find something through interlibrary loan. 

He sets the wand back on the cart and lays down on the bed, not caring that he’s laying on top of his books and research, as a strong wave of nausea moves over him. Isobel stands up and moves to his side instantly, pulling a garbage can with her as she reaches out and runs a hand through his hair. 

“It’s going to be okay,” she tells him, and he’s not sure who she’s trying to convince more with that statement. “You’re gonna be okay.” 

He closes his eyes as he tries not to hurl. A moment later, he feels a cool washcloth get pushed against his forehead. 

“I should have done all this research years ago,” he complains, forever mad at himself for not taking the time to investigate their biology more. 

“We promised we wouldn’t,” she reminds him. 

“I don’t care, that was stupid,” he says as his stomach turns over and he bites down on his lips to keep from throwing up. 

“It’s probably just a bug,” she tells him, her voice taking on that pitched tone she gets when she’s especially worried. “You’ll figure it out. You’re the smartest person I know.” 

“In this town, that’s not really saying much,” he tries to deliver with a smile to ease her fear, but he just can’t manage it. 

“Relax, just try to breathe through it,” she tells him. The mattress moves under him and Isobel shifts around and he groans. There’s the sound of a drawer opening and closing and the next thing he knows, Isobel is rubbing something under his nose. 

“What are you—” he starts to protest when he breathes in the scent of peppermint and it instantly shuts him up. He’s always teased her about her essential oil obsession because really, what ailment was she trying to heal with that shit? But as the scent washes over him with each inhale and the nausea slowly starts to dull, he can’t find a single teasing word. The only thing he feels is gratitude, not that he’ll admit as much. 

He opens his eyes and finds Isobel inspecting the small bottle of oil with great interest. “Wow, I guess that life hack actually works then?” 

He reaches out and takes the bottle from her and puts it in his pocket for future use, ignoring her smug smile. 

“Nothing to say?” she teases. 

“I hate you,” he responds, but it holds no malice.

“Aww, I love you too,” she says, moving several of his books to the nightstand so she can lay down beside him. He doesn’t object when she cuddles into his side and rests her head on his shoulder. 

They remain quiet for several long moments, which is a fairly impressive feat for her, but eventually she does speak up. “What are we going to do if you can’t figure this out?” she asks quietly, as if she’s scared to actually put that out into the universe. 

He shakes his head. He has no idea. Of all of the ways he’d thought of to find answers, the ultrasound machine had been his best option. He’s got an entire secret bunker at Sanders full of research that tells him trying to find a way to contact his own people will be pointless. And he doesn’t trust that Isobel’s powers are strong enough to get a doctor to look at him and have them forget the entire exchange. He’s worried if they tried, she might black out again and kill somebody. So that has left him figuring this out on his own through the limited means he has… research on human biology and hoping it is close enough to his own. 

Isobel sits up and reaches behind herself to take the wand off of the cart. 

“What are you doing?” he asks her. 

She shrugs. “I wanna learn.” 

“ _ You _ want to learn,” he says, doubtful. She’s never once been interested in learning anything science related. Really in anything remotely academic. 

“Yes Michael,” she says sharply. “My idiot brother is sick and possibly dying and I want to learn what I can to help him. Is that so hard to believe?” 

Michael doesn’t say anything, he just moves over on the bed to make more space for her and lifts back up his shirt. He directs her to grab the gel before letting her explore randomly. She runs the wand over his chest first as he explains to her that they are looking at his heart. She moves to turn up the volume on the machine and pays closer attention. 

“Doesn’t that seem… kind of fast?” she asks. 

Michael shrugs. “I don’t know what normal is for us,” he admits. “The few times we had to wear heart monitors in PE I made sure mine malfunctioned because I didn’t know what they would find.” 

Isobel looks down at her Fitbit before turning back to the screen. “How do you figure out your heart rate?”

“It’s beats per minute. So you can count the beats per 15 seconds then multiply it by 4,” he explains. His eyes go to the screen as he starts to count the beats in his head, while also keeping track of the seconds. 

“140,” he says just as Isobel looks up from her Fitbit and is about to open her mouth to speak. She looks back down at her Fitbit. 

“I’m 142,” she says. 

“Then I’m good.” 

“What is it for humans?” she asks and the question gets his attention. She so rarely wants to talk about being an alien. She and Max always like to just ignore all the ways they are different. He can’t remember the last time he even heard her say the word ‘human’ as if she wasn’t one of them. 

“Resting? Somewhere between 60 and 100. So ours are a bit high, but you’re in great shape and are 142, so I’d assume my heart is healthy too,” he says. 

She moves the wand down more towards his stomach — or rather where he assumes he has a stomach — and starts asking, “what’s this,” about everything they see. He makes some best guesses, but the reality is that he isn’t positive about anything. It will likely take him days of careful study to determine what everything is that he’s looking at. And even then, he’ll only be looking with the human body as a frame of reference. Who knows where those similarities begin and end? 

Isobel moves the wand down further, closer to his pelvis and suddenly the weird static sound shifts and there’s a very distinct sound that he can’t quite place. 

“Do you have a second heart?” Isobel asks, she moves the wand back up to his chest and it’s that same sound… a weird whoosh, but almost like… galloping? Michael yanks the wand out of her hand and moves it back down to just below his stomach, listening to the sound again as his throat closes up and he realizes what it is that he’s listening to. 

“That’s the same sound,” Isobel says. “I don’t understand, why is it louder down here?” 

Michael moves the wand back to his chest and closes his eyes, tuning Isobel out as he carefully counts the beats per minute, counting for the entire minute just to be sure. 

  1. His heart rate is 140. 



He moves the wand back down again and counts. 




“They’re different,” he whispers as tears begin to fill his eyes uncontrollably. He’s not sure how, and he’s not sure why, but if there is one thing he is sure of with absolute certainty, it’s that he’s pregnant. 

“So you do have two hearts?” she asks, tilting her head at the screen, curiously. “Like a squid or something?” 

Michael’s eyes go to the screen. He moves the wand around slowly, aware of what he’s looking for now. It takes him some time, but once he gets it in just the right spot, Isobel lets out a shocked gasp and Michael can’t help but start crying. 

“That’s not my heartbeat,” he says quietly and Isobel’s eyes fly to meet his. 

“How in the hell is this even possible?” she asks. 

Michael shakes his head. “We’re not human,” he says. “Our biology is clearly different…” 

He trails off because he doesn’t have the brain power to explain anything right now, because the only thought in his mind is  _ baby, baby, baby _ . 

His other hand moves down to cover his stomach in wonder. He’s heard women talk about how they’d fallen in love with their child the moment they heard the heartbeat and Michael always assumed that was some pretentious line of shit meant to extol the superiority of pregnancy and having a family the ‘right’ way. At least, that’s the message he’d always gotten from crazy Mrs. Ryerson. But he gets it now. Because it’s been less than a minute since he realized what it was he was listening to and already, he’s in love. 

“What are you gonna do?” Isobel asks, sounding horrified. 

He drops the wand and both of his hands move protectively over his stomach as he meets her eyes. She studies his expression for a minute, neither of them saying a word, but words aren’t necessary. Her eyes soften and her entire body relaxes as she starts to nod her head. 

“I’m gonna help you,” she promises him, pulling him in for a hug. “Whatever way I can. I’m going to be here.” 

Which is good, because it’s precisely that moment that his brain decides to remind him that he didn’t make this baby alone. The list of people that could have gotten him pregnant has exactly one name on it, and Alex Manes wants nothing to do with him anymore. 


End file.
